


Closed Circuit

by spheri



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mutual Pining, Spoilers, Spoilers for Ending A
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 05:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10405134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spheri/pseuds/spheri
Summary: A history of love and death, sustained by lies and doomed to repeat.





	

Her human must have been beautiful, he reflected, and by extension, so was she. The thought was mostly analytical in nature, a casual flow of equations and evaluations factoring measurement, proportions and unnatural, almost ethereal symmetry.

They must have made adjustments when they manufactured her, widened her hips, lengthened her legs, as she was a little bit taller than 9S, and he found himself returning to this fact more than once. He didn’t know why he needed to dwell on this so much. He didn’t know why her heart-shaped face and even, full lips and the curve where her neck vanished into the tall collar of her black dress made him focus like he was processing infinite permutations at once.

2B was a _problem._

At first it was a relief – relief like a bubble popping, a bird taking flight – when he heard her voice: 2B, the only surviving YoRHa pilot in the squadron. A new voice to finally respond to his own.

A _friend._

There was a moment of loaded anticipation as he dialled for her in the network and they connected for the first time. The line crackled slightly with interference and 9S felt something in him shift like a puzzle piece softly clicking into place.

Like coming home.

By all accounts, she was just as unpleasant to interface with as his operator.

“Emotion is prohibited,” she intoned, like a slap to the wrist.

Not that it actually was, but 9S was grateful for the companionship all the same, and each YoRHa soldier had her boundaries.

9S was not entirely certain _what_ emotion was prohibited. He understood that in this moment, he felt unburdened by her presence, and that processing, scanning and working became easier now that he was no longer alone, but logic concluded that this would always be the case – two agents would always exponentially increase productivity compared to one.

And with that said 9S wanted to know: why did 2B insist on dropping formality when they had only just met? Why did something seem to painfully resonate inside of him when she called his name over the comm? Why did he feel the sudden, urgent need to defend her with his life? Androids were designed for survival and functionality. Self-preservation came foremost in combat. If his operator reported his vitals every time 2B seemed to be in trouble, Command would decommission him faster than he could calculate how long it would take to say “finished”.

But that was beside the point now.

He had been foolish and emotional and now he was to die. Why he had chosen to prioritise 2B’s memory files over his own was beyond the ability of any rational thought to decipher. She was… truly beautiful. It was a shame he wouldn’t get the chance to get to know her better.

And the way she frantically attempted to mend his now broken body was touching, to be honest. It was all right. She was worth dying for.

_Prohibited. Yeah, right._

As he offered her his black box, something spasmed at the corner of his lips.

What was this feeling?

_It has been an honour to fight with you._

Sadness. Despair.

_The pleasure… was mine._

Oh, if only he could make her smile so that it might be the one and final image he bore with him as his consciousness faded into oblivion.

 

\---

 

“People who are close to me call me Nines,” he said, hope hanging on his every word. “So what do you think?”

“Of?”

“I mean – it’s totally okay if you want to call me Nines.”

Her flat refusal was now automatic. No laughter. No anger. No regret.

No mourning.

2B was tired. Her body was mended and new, but inside she had nothing left to give.

The sound of his crestfallen sigh bit into the pit of her stomach and she turned away so that he wouldn’t see how she had to fight the urge to surrender just to see him happy.

No affection. No desire.

No guilt.

 

\---

 

9S knew that smiling and laughter came with happiness. He knew that he felt more and more compelled to display these signals – these faint echoes of the human he was modelled off – the more time he spent with 2B.

Plugged into a logic cascade, this would mean that 2B caused 9S to experience something akin to happiness. He knew this was acceptable. He felt this emotion sometimes when he took a hot shower after a long day, heard an amusing piece of irrational or paradoxical logic or spent time doing something that required a pleasant amount of processing. None of this, however, matched the swell of giggling that burst out when he watched 2B make a face at a spider, the awe that held him when he watched her battle like a dancer with brilliant death in her hands, the light flashing off her sword, or the dizzying rush of something that was almost adrenaline when she stood close and he could smell her – clean like ethanol and welcoming with the scent of freshly cut flowers.

It seemed that no logic formula, progression map, statistical equation or algorithm could account for the heat that flooded his system when she praised him, humoured him, worried about his safety.

Happiness seemed inadequate to explain the fear that gripped him when she cried out in pain, the hurt that pierced when she refused to call him by his nickname or the consuming sense of longing he had when he watched her power down at the end of every day and enter standby.

In the stillness, he could almost hear her processor breathe, a quiet hum of circuitry and electrical impulses. If he dared, he could reach out and touch her face. Hold her hand. Stroke her smooth, warm skin.

He didn’t want this. None of this _craving_ and discomfort, none of this wrenching sorrow for what he could not have.

But 9S was practical and work needed to be done. So he chose not to question and continued to observe.

On most nights, he watched her sleep as his logic dissolved into the darkness around her.

He felt like he was going mad.

“So… when do you think you’ll call me Nines?”

Her coldness was like a switch.

On.

“I’m good.”

Off.

 

\---

 

The first enemy in the Forest Palace loomed out of the darkness before 2B could process his location in time. 9S threw himself between them, pulling up 153’s shield, which buckled with a deafening crack as steel met plasma.

The blow would have cloven her in two.

“Be careful, 2B! This place is swarming with hostiles.”

And that was all it took. She forgot herself and it slipped out: the pet name she had locked away after mission 15-C-481.

She knew that _no one_ called 9S _Nines_. It was the lone piece of data that for some reason maintenance could not wipe despite 2B’s special request. He recalled the name, but not the context.

_People close to me call me Nines._

If only he knew. First and forever.

Nines was _hers._

 

\---

 

“Proposal: report 9S to Command as a deserter.”

 _“No!”_ she all but shrieked over the sound of gunfire as she cancelled the prompt. “He has a plan.”

She couldn’t focus. She was taking damage that would take 9S days, weeks to reverse. The flight suit would be a write-off. Command would severely reprimand her, but she couldn’t even spare the processing power to care. Capacity had been achieved and even if death was the consequence, so be it.

Capacity was 9S.

She couldn’t remember what happened after the second cannon blast. When her central processing booted up once more, he was nowhere to be found.

Panic overrode every single command. She didn’t have time to prioritise regrouping YoRHa for recon and preservation, to find her comrades and save the Type-Bs first. She didn’t have time for this _shit._

When 045’s scanner finally picked up the black box distress call, she could feel the Morse code hammer like a false heartbeat in her chest. How dare they, how _dare_ _they?_ She would tear the Earth asunder to find them, flay them, burn them. She would die a thousand ways and resurrect every time to perish again in the flames of the battles they fought if it meant that 9S could be safe.

She would destroy them. All of them.

“I’ll _kill_ you!”

**I’LL KILL YOU.**

 

\---

 

9S wanted to die. He didn’t want to know this suffering anymore.

_Why do you do this?_

“Vengeance. Knowledge. Power.”

_Why do you hate me?_

“Why do you kill?”

_2… 2B. Help me, 2B._

2B? What do you know of your precious 2B?

_I… I love her._

“What is love? Is it this?”

Thousands, millions of images, data, files.

Memories. Memories 9S had lost, erased because he loved 2B. But no matter how many memories he lost of her, his formatting was always incomplete. A part of him was always _Nines._

“Why do you love?”

What… what was this? Were these files corrupted? Why did she… why did she have to kill him? Over and over, she tore him in half, snapped his neck, ran him through, drowned him, held him. Cried and cried and cried and cried and 9S felt like someone had cracked him open and splayed him out with his nerves and circuits exposed, bleeding oil and burning with pain.

“Wait here now,” Adam whispered, closing up the wall of white infinite nothingness. “Be patient. She will come.”

9S screamed for 2B.

He screamed for death.

 

\---

 

Was it some form of malicious irony that the one time they managed to retrieve his data was the one time it came with the worst possible memories?

2B was angry. Such emotion was not a common experience for her and it was frightening how quickly it consumed all rational processing, drowned out the possibility of negotiation and drove her relentlessly to strike until either her opponent fell or she disintegrated into dust.

And it had come with delicious, almost sinful gratification as she thrust Virtuous Contract through the Adam creature and felt its flesh give, muscles contract, sinew snap, blood ooze onto her sleeves and gloves, sticky and warm. She stared him in the face and wrenched her sword in a twisting carve to ensure pain, _pain, suffer, you disgusting sheath of rust and grease, you abomination, you unnatural –_

His bones caught on the blade and ripped through his skin and spilled organs, red and yellow and still pulsing with activity.

 _Human?_ The thought stirred for a moment in the corner of her mind and she was horrified and sorry and still so angry and –

And Nines, her Nines, broken and barely alive, his circuits whirring with effort, skin feverish with overloaded processing.

When they boot him up, will he remember the pain, the ruined hydraulics in his limbs, the blades embedded in his flesh? Would there be thoughts of the Adam creature and the poison it tried to feed him, memories of 2B finding him, gathering his limp body in her arms, the oil, blood and plasma fluids spilling out of him, onto the pristine white silicone tiles?

Would he remember the moment he looked up at her and smiled despite her tears and rage and his fried vocal processor spewed the most beautiful nonsense she had ever heard?

2B was angry at herself. Angry at her own inability to protect the only thing that truly mattered to her.

Because when it came down to it, this was against her programming, the flow of binary that lived in her like the DNA that wrote the colour of her eyes and hair. She had been built for but one purpose and no level of emotion could override fundamental commands.

They pieced 9S together, reset his system and reassigned him to her. Reliable. Routine.

2B was angry, but she was also grateful.

 

\---

 

“Do it,” he whispered, the sound distorted, corrupted by the virus. “I want you to be the one, 2B.”

Error prompts flooded his vision and even as he lost control of everything else, he attempted to dismiss them because he wanted to see. He wanted to see her face, her eyes without the visor. This was his reward for hard work and sacrifice.

Mercy at the hands of the one he wanted most.

He could see the conflict in her eyes but even that was draining away. Logic exhausted, out of options, she seemed distressed, resigned.

“Nines,” her voice cracked, and his heart sang.

Her soft, worn leather gloves caressed his face as the sensation left his skin and surely it was okay now, in these last moments to pretend that her touch was tender, her motions fuelled by love and not duty. His voice functions were gone.

Please.

Please, if he could remember one thing, just one thing, let it be her hands, tight and warm around his neck, tears spilling from her eyes as she wrung the life from him. He wanted to tell her that it was all right, to pull her close and comfort her – nothing more mattered – just this once, to hold her and tell her –

_Why does it always end this way?_

 

\---

 

Perhaps this time, they could run away.

Disconnect from the network. 9S could hack them out and they could move to another part of the Earth, form a new colony of rogue YoRHa and live in peace, away from machines, away from war.

She would protect him. He could repair them.

They could love.

It was a fleeting daydream, a sigh from a memory, lost with the sound of a snapping wire. Worthless code that blinked out of existence the moment she set eyes on him once more.

Smiling. Freshly formatted. Whole.

_But empty._

“I’m so pleased to meet you! I’ve never had a partner before, so it’s kind of exciting!”

If she had a heart, she was sure it had broken a long time ago, but she felt it again each time, like a hook in her chest, the screaming refrain of a soul trapped.

“Emotion is prohibited.”

She couldn’t do this again. She didn’t have the strength.

“R-right! Sorry.”

Perhaps she’ll let him kill her this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Written after finishing Ending A. 
> 
> I love this game. 
> 
> Protect 9S at all costs.


End file.
